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From the Arctic to Africa: Where China’s Wealthy Want to Travel

06/06/2014|6:14:29 PM|blogs.wsj.com

Forget France. China’s richest travelers want to vacation in much more exotic locations, including Australia, South America, the South and North poles and Africa, according to a new study.

Tourists take pictures from a viewing platform overlooking Cape Town’s Atlantic beachfront in South Africa.

Hurun Report, a firm that tracks the trends of China’s wealthy, spoke with 203 Chinese “super-tourists”—dubbed such because they took an average of 18 vacation days abroad per year and spent at least $25,000 on one trip over the past three years—for one section of its sprawling annual survey.

When asked which destination was their “must-achieve travel in the next three years,” the top answer was South America – Bolivia — with the two arctic Poles coming in second. Africa was third, followed by a Mediterranean luxury cruise. The only European country among the top 10: Switzerland in ninth place.

A rising motivation for travel among these super-tourists is medical tourism. Two-thirds said they’d consider traveling abroad for a trip to a hospital and 27% chose Switzerland as their top medical destination, followed by the U.S., with 22%.

Among the less-traveled rich – Hurun also conducted a separate survey of 393 high-net-worth individuals with at least 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) in assets – Australia shot up to their most-desired destination, up from seventh last year. France, came in second, followed by Dubai, Switzerland and the Maldives. Last year, France was the top destination, followed by the U.S. and Singapore.

And despite the city’s hostility to mainland Chinese visitors, Hong Kong remained a top destination, ranking second among domestic Chinese destinations, the same place it took in last year’s survey. In first place again was Sanya, which some dub as “China’s Hawaii.”